Tuning a Guitar
by Pinkie Tuscadaro
Summary: Craig and Ellie, from the early days of group to the cocaine to the beach.


He sat in the circle of kids, head bowed down. So this was it. He was as fucked up as they were.

It was Ellie's group, and he hadn't really wanted to come, but Ashley tugged on his jacket and leaned into him and looked up at him with her smoky blue eyes and said that he should. He felt so fucked up that he would just listen to anybody, they all apparently knew better than he did. At night he'd eat when Joey said it was time to and he'd take his meds when Joey said to. So he nodded and agreed to go.

This was crashing into his usual coping mechanism with unpleasant things, and that was to ignore it, disregard it, pretend it wasn't even happening. That's what he had done when his father was beating him, and look how well that had turned out?

He glanced up and saw Ellie looking at him. She smiled and he attempted to smile back but failed, and he looked down again. Her red hair was pretty, the way it framed her face, the way the light played on it, any dim light at all could pick up the fire in her hair.

The chairs were arranged in a large circle, and in every one of them was some sad, screwed up kid. Who was worse? Was the other bipolar kid worse than he was? After all, he got arrested. Was the anorexic girl worse? She weighed 85 pounds, and her wrists were as tiny as a child's. Was Ellie worse? Her father was gone and her mother was an alcoholic, and she cut herself. Or was he worse? Both his parents were dead, but before his father died he managed to beat the shit out of him on a regular basis, and now he had a mental illness and had betrayed everyone's trust and spent a ton of Joey's money, and he beat Joey up. The person who took him in and stood by him and had done way more than anyone could ever have expected, and he goes and does that? Joey could have shipped him off to some foster home easily back when he ran away, back when he was so afraid of his father and what would happen at his house that he was willing to live on the streets instead of going back.

The list of his sins wasn't as simple as that. He had tried to kill himself. Sad, screwed up Craig. He could still see the way Joey had been looking at him in the cemetery that night. It was a look of pity and something, and he could feel himself freaking out but he couldn't stop. He was at the end of some kind of rope then.

There was Manny and the abortion. Sometimes he still thought of that, feeling some kind of guilt for ever creating that baby in the first place. He'd begged her not to have the abortion, but what would they have done with a child?

The therapist who ran this group was graying, balding, softly out of shape. He wore gray sweaters over dress shirts and held a clip board, filled with the names and the fucked upness of everyone here, no doubt. He wasn't threatening, he looked like someone who would listen attentively as you spoke and perhaps have some sage advice.

Ashley was becoming something of a problem. He saw the look in her eyes, despite what she said. She was nervous, she was looking for signs that he was manic or depressed and he tried to seem perfectly okay for her, but being around her was becoming harder and harder. He felt depressed. He felt out of it because of some of the meds, more tired than he should be, and his thoughts weren't racing anymore, far from it. They were slow thoughts. And he was depressed because he was bipolar, mentally ill, and it meant medication and psychiatrists for the rest of his life. And he was depressed because he hurt Joey, and he never meant to.

Ellie was talking, and she sounded fine. He squinted his eyes at her, knowing she was in a better place than he was. She accepted certain things about herself and her life that he was fighting against, always fighting against them. In his head he was shouting, "I'm fine!" He had shouted that very thing to Joey that night in the cemetery. He had been willing to let the train hit him just to end the pain and the fear he was always feeling. He was aching from the broken ribs that the last beating had caused. He was going to run away to anywhere rather than go back to his house.

He hadn't been fine then and he wasn't fine now. Maybe he should just accept that. He was screwed up. Maybe in a few years he would be better, but not now. Ashley would dump him, he could tell. He was too damaged for her.

"Craig?" The therapist spoke to him and he looked up, feeling the eyes of everyone else slowly settle on him, and he squirmed in the glare of their attention.

"How are you doing?" he said.

"I'm fine,"


End file.
